Dear Readercon
Originally published at The Mossy Skull. Please leave any comments there.
You know what this is going to be about.
Readercon is my favorite convention. It’s the one I’ve been to the most, the one where I am least scared of the rest of the attendees and feel least obligated to front. It’s the best-organized con I’ve ever been to. It has my favorite people at it. And it’s the closest con to the place where I was born.
None of the above, I realize, will prevent me from learning to love and rely on some other con as much, if it comes to that, and as a number of ultimata from upstanding pillars of the community have begun to threaten. No, what will prevent me is dread of being forced to undergo all that horrible social conditioning again. To my relief, I am perfectly aware that my threatening the same thing-never to attend Readercon again if you don’t change your tune and follow your own damn rule-would have zero effect. But when your stubborn refusal to follow your own zero-tolerance policy costs you the attendance of Catherynne Valente and Jeffrey Ford, it should be obvious even to you that you’re self-destructing the reputation you’ve built up for your wonderful con over all this time. If this keeps up, you’ll lose everything that made people like me want to come to your con in the first place.
Reverse your ruling. It’s not too late to get back all that credibility you had until two weeks ago. But if you don’t hurry up, it will be.
Update: They did it! Hooray.